Week 48 house update

Hello all.

Now has there been a big gap between the posts so I thought it is time for a update. There have been good progress at the build site. The biggest visible change from out side is that the scaffolding is removed and we can fully appreciated the house. It is a BIG house when we look at it.

 But I think it is because there are no trees or other gardening around it. It is stand like a big block in the middle of a gravel pit. We have our work planed for the coming years. But I think it will be great when it is done, how fun would it be if every thing was done and ready when you moved in. Then is there no need to by timber or tools.

They have also done allot of work inside of the house. All the inside electrical wiring is completed. All the internal non weight carrying walls are up and insulated and covered with gypsum. All windows are caulked so the house is sealed from wind draft. The roof insulation is on place so the house have received a cap that is needs. All this work is very time consuming and fiddly and the result is not that visible all the time. But this is how it looks now inside.

So there is good progress on the house build even if the blog i very quiet. We are closing in on the finalization of the build and we fell that it will be a hectic time around Christmas and the beginning of next year. If we could control the contractors would we not be that worried but they are very unpredictable and do not always follow a time table. But I guess that how the build business is like and we only have to coup with the situation. I do not worry that it will be late, but as you how know us we like to plan a head and have some space in the time plan.

Until next time, have a nice Christmas warm up with all the dinners etc.

First foam scratch build

Hi again, more RC adventure post this time! So if your only interested in the house build skip this blog post.

As I was not 100% happy of the flight characteristics of the Bristol scout it did not fill the gap with a small area slow flier. So I started searching for a new plane that, I did not want to spend to much money either. I have been following the great RC site Flite test and they built a nifty little flyer called the FT flyer. This plane was right in my speck and looked fun to build.

So I went to In-ex and bought some paper laminated foam boards and started cutting and gluing. It have taken me roughly 6hours to complete the build and that is because have double check allot of measurements.
This is my finished plane!

It took several weeks before the weather was good enough for a maiden flight. But three weeks ago where there a calm day in between the storms. They plane flew great! I could do high alfas and near vertical. I liked the slow calm flying characteristics and the speed you can get if you like. I have trimmed the engine down about 30% because I know it is over power. So if I set it to 100% should I get vertical flight!
This plane will get allot of more flying when the weather allows.

Next up is to build my self a trainer variant with the same fuselage. But that is another blog post or two.

Week 42 house update

So two weeks have elapsed again from last post. My excuse this time is that the computer have been stored in the attic for a few days. I had no time writing for this blog because we have been selling the apartment and the desk/computer is not that beautiful in a viewing of the apartment. Because of the delay will this report be for two weeks of work and allot have happened.

Since the outer panel was delayed and our normal contractors had to finish weatherproofing a other house where there two new contractors, a father and son that did most of the outer panel and window trim. We tried to follow them with the paintbrush when the weather allowed it. We where lucky to get a few good days of painting weather and we painted until the sun set on the other side of the valley. We have to paint before the winter is coming and temperature droppes to low. According to the specification on the paint should we not paint below 10 degrees Celsius so the days where numbered also do the builder to remove the scaffolding when they are done. But now is the upper floor fully painted so we do not need to worry about the scaffolding any more. The remaining area can we take with a footstool and the outer panel is painted once from the factory so it will last one winter with out any problems. They have also put on the roof tiles and all the rainwater gutters are in place  I really like the grey finish of the rain gutters. It binds very well with the windows and is a nice contrast to the white walls.

The builders have also been working inside when it has been raining. They have put in the insulation on all the outer walls and between the floors. Also put on the chipboard floor on the second floor. They have also put in the horizontal beams for the inner walls on the upper floor. This means that we could see the room layout. We where not 100% satisfied with it so we did some minor changes to get the rooms working better. And in junction with this did we change the railing above the staircase hole from a solid wall to a railing based on stainless steel tubing with stainless steel roods. The tubing was from my parents old railing for there balcony that they have change so it was free :) This will give us a more open and lighter appearance in the hallway.
Here are the changes highlighted in red.

Next report will have the changes visualized with the inner walls and maybe some plasterboard.  So this is it from these two weeks. From now on will there be more inside changes because most of the exterior is done.
I got a few nice pictures when the sun was setting and the fog was crawling out on the meadows.

So we do a final picture as usual on cows and a happy son.

Week 40 update

Hello all

Time for an update on the house build again and yes I know that it have elapsed two weeks since last update. But I have really bad reasons for this ;)

Anyhow, the last week have the house build progressed been good. Know wonder when we have the correct outer panel and builders at the site! They have put up the outer panel on most of the house during week and will do the remaining this week after a late delivery of some extra long panel boards. So all the outer panel should be finished this week! The beaters have also been there and installed all the gutters on the roof. So it looks more and more like a proper house every time we are there.

Because it was not raining for ones did I take the Friday off from work so we could paint the final layer of paint on the outer panel. So we where there on Friday with help from parents inlaw and we made good progress. On Saturday was the baptism of our son which we planed long ago and though that we would be finished painting by now. So it was very hectic to get every thing in order. But it was a beautiful ceremony and it went well. Thanks for every own how could share this day with Jesper.

So after a long day of fixing and serving all the guests where we back at the build site on Sunday for more painting. This time did we have help from my parents and believe it or not did we finish what we could do. We can not paint where the builders do not have put in the final nails with the nail gun. But I would say that we are 50% done with the painting work and feels sooooooo good. The good part is that we have painted most of the areas where we need help from the scaffolding. The remaining areas can I take with a ladder so there is less tress with the timing. But our goal is to finish all the exterior painting this year.

Here is a few pictures of the house from the weekend. Enjoy!

Week 38 house update

Hello all.

I missed one week but that is because there where not much happening on the house build. There where a small miss in the order of the outer panel.
The panel had the wrong shape it was like this:

And we wanted this shape below to give a more clean look on the house:

It was also to short for the two story part of the house. Because we are building a two full story house is the house wall very high it is over 5,4m which is the longest normal timber length you can get in Sweden with out paying more than normal. So we have to add a joint some where on the wall. We wanted it disappear as much as possible so we placed it over the second floor windows. This is at a height of roughly 5,3m over the ground. So this means that we need the longest panel length available. This was the problem the panel was in normal length at 4,2m long so they where to short.

But now after two weeks have the new panel arrived and the builders can start again and we can continue painting. All other painting is done that we can do now is done so we wait for the outer panel. We want to start asap because the temperature is continuously decreasing and the weather is not the best for painting. But I think we will manage in the end. Here are some pictures of the work weekends and the help when we have been painting the eave (the visible outcrop under side of the roof) and the rake (vindskiva).

During the weekend did we actually do one nice thing. Planted our first apple tree! We are planing to have 3-4 apple trees and this is the first we will follow the garden plan and have them in a row. We chose a Aroma for the first tree next will be a winter apple but we have not decided yet off which sort. Lets hope it stay up right and the rain deer´s leave it be.

First apple tree of three planted. 

And the cows are usual looking at our project with great curiosity, or not.

Week 36 house update

The build is progressing with good speed. But the grass is growing good! All the hard work is paying off now which feels good. Now is it only 400 square meters left. Do some one like to dig and carry stones?

As I said the build is progressing. It is not as spectacular like last week and the week before that. The builders have put on first layer of insulation on the outer side and covered it with wind proof membrane. The roof have got the all the distance and roof tile hangers on place. Also the outer doors are in.

We have also started on the painting. There is ALLOT to paint, luckily for us is the outer panel covered with base coat and first cover coating. But we have to paint the roof overhang three times. It is fairly easy when we have the big scaffolding in place, but still it is allot of work painting in a under up position. We got the base coat on during Saturday and on Sunday came the rain so no painting then. But it will come more days to paint. For this under up painting have we found the perfect tool. I did not know that you could by a paint brush with this long stick, it is 83cm shaft.

Also posts at the carport have been put in to place.

I think this is what have happened this week. It do not look like much, but it is allot of small things that have been done. So let´s see what will happen during this week.

Old hobbies brought to life

As it stated in the banner is this blog is about my various projects/hobbies. A few weeks ago was I on my attic and roamed around and I found my old RC planes. I knew that I had a project that was 20% and I have all the parts for completing the build. Why my interest in RC planes is back again is because our house  location is perfect for flying. Now houses or car-parks close by only grass meadows to land on if/when I crash. The hobby also suits my new family configuration, it is hard to be gone for one or two days which I am when I play with my miniatures. So for now being will I probably spend a few hours building and repairing planes.

Back to the plane it is out of production now but it was produced by SIG. The plane is a semi scale based on a old WW1 war plane the Bristol scout. The prototype for the Bristol Scout was designed in the second half of 1913 by Frank Barnwell and Harry Busteed. For more information see this wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Scout

So I picked it down from the attic and started the build in my cellar. I could see that the time in the attic have made the wings a bit more flat so the flight will be faster and the lift will be less. But I think I can handle that. I have change the stock engine to a more power full brushless setup, this meant that I had to build a new motor mount that took some time to figure out. But after a few sessions was is complete. Now was I only waiting for calm weather.

I maiden it and it behaved nicely. It was much faster than I expected, I bought this plane to replace my old GWS Tiger moth which was a very slow and forgiving plane. I think the speed comes with the more power full engine and the flatter wing profile. The stall was not to bad but I took some time before the I regain  control again. After some landings and slow flybys did it tipstal but I was roughly 1 meter over ground so no big damage done. This flight was my first in 5 years I think so I was not that sharp behind the sticks and in the end did I do a to daring move on to low altitude and did a rough crash.  But with some epoxy was it fixed again.

Because the speed of the plane is not suited for extreme close quarters, I can fly it at the local soccer field but smaller spaces that that is to tight for it.

Yellow lamp for my wife

So me and my wife celebrated our first wedding anniversary this week. I can only say that it is nearly forgotten in between the house build and our new borne son. But my wife made a lovely dinner for the evening and we celebrated with some nice sparkling whine.

No to why I post about this. I believe that we are not like all couples we do not give jewelry or other unnecessary stuff as present because we always have one project going that need some new gizmo. And this wedding anniversary was no exception. So this time I wanted to find some thing that we could fit in to the house and that my wife would like. As the house is about 4x the size we have now and we need allot of furniture and lighting. I started to search for some kind of lamp and I found it big time. First time I saw this beauty and I new directly where to place it. The lamp is a ceiling lamp from By Rydéns who make allot of nice lamps I think there will be more lamps from this company in our house. The lamp is called Charm, it comes in 4 colours and I have chosen the Yellow varaint.

Is in it lovely!

Week 35 house update

This have been an eventful week! There have been big progress on the build site as you will see on the pictures. The week started with the roof the builders hammered down all the out riggers and covered them with tar paper for weather proofing. This took two-three days because it is a big house and the out riggers are not in sheets it is single boards. After that was it time to put in the windows and finish of the with the asfaboard to get it near weather proof condition.

So after one week good progress was it time for "taklags fest" med smörgås-cake and princess-cake in the sun. It feels really good that house frame is up and that it is cowered with the walls and roof. Now can the Autumn storm start if they want to.

The grass lawn seam to be growing the weather have been perfect for it. It has not been to cold or to hot and there have been some lite rain also. But we have to water for precaution because we do not have any rain meter so it is hard to tell how much rain there have been. We are very pleased with the Gardena sprinklers we bought the spread the water nicely. We are also staring get plants for the garden, but we do not dare to plant them because of the builders are in that region. So we have put them as far away as possible. Lets hope that they survive the miss treatment this winter. So thanks every one how have given us the start of our garden.

I also have to mention one lucky strike. On the upper floor we have a bathroom which has on smal window facing north. This was put in to get some natural light but nothing more. But when I looked through the window we have a sea view from the bathroom so it´s position was really good. Picture below is the view from the bathroom.

Next step in the build is to get some more layers of insulation and wind covers before the outer panel is coming on the house. But we can already start painting underneath the roof. So now is it time to get the big brush and big jars of paint. As always will the colour be whit.